e war, however, which thus broke out between Demetrius and Pyrrhus
did not arise wholly from accidental collisions occurring on the
frontiers. Demetrius was a man of the most violent and insatiable
ambition, and wholly unscrupulous in respect to the means of
gratifying the passion. Before his difficulties with Pyrrhus began, he
had made expeditions southwardly into Greece, and had finally
succeeded in reducing a large portion of that country to his sway. He,
however, at one time, in the course of his campaigns in Greece,
narrowly escaped a very sudden termination of his career. He was
besieging Thebes, one of the principal cities of Greece, and one which
was obstinately determined not to submit to him. In fact, the
inhabitants of the city had given him some special cause of offense,
so that he was excessively angry with them, and though for a long time
he made very little progress in prosecuting the siege, he was
determined not to give up the attempt. At one period, he was himself
called away from the place for a time, to engage in some military
duty demanding his attention in Thessaly, and during his absence he
left his son to conduct the siege. On his return to Thebes, he found
that, through the energetic and obstinate resistance which was made by
the people of Thebes, great numbers of his men were continually
falling--so much so, that his son began to remonstrate with him
against allowing so great and so useless a slaughter to go on.
"Consider," said he, "why you should expose so many of your valiant
soldiers to such sure destruction, when--"

Here Demetrius, in a passion, interrupted him, saying, "Give yourself
no concern about how many of the soldiers are killed. The more there
are killed, the fewer you will have to provide subsistence for!"

The brutal recklessness, however, which Demetrius thus evinced in
respect to the slaughter of his troops was not attended, as such a
feeling often is, with any cowardly unwillingness to expose himself to
danger. He mingled personally in the contests that took place about
the walls of the city, and hazarded his own life as freely as he
required his soldiers to hazard theirs. At length, on one occasion, a
javelin thrown from the wall struck him in the neck, and, passing
directly through, felled him to the ground. He was taken up for dead,
and borne to his tent. It was there found, on examination, that no
great artery or other vital part had been wounded, and yet in a very
shor